How to rank one URL over another on Google?

[erencicek]

Hi there

So I have this problem, that this link: www.popandpal.dk/products/dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink links to the same landingpage as this link, that appears on my webshop when I click on the product: https://www.popandpal.dk/products/dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink?variant=41498906362045 

On google, I am ranking for this site: www.popandpal.dk/products/dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink 

I kinda need the other one to go away; how would one do that, so its only the above that refers to my landing page?

Could you kindly explain it to me as I was a little kid not understanding that much of coding etc? 😄

With kind regards

[voxfa]

Hey Erencicek,

In the world of SEO (and Google), www.popandpal.dk/products/dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink and https://www.popandpal.dk/products/dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink?variant=41498906362045 are considered the same page. The query string "?variant=41498906362045" does not create a new page but rather acts as a parameter that provides additional information about the product variant. Therefore, Google builds one SEO profile around /dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink/.

I am not sure how you have set up your switches, but it seems that you want the URL to change completely when a user clicks on a swatch. For example, /dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink/ and /dyreplakat-et-eventyr-blue/ or /dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink/variation1/ and /dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink/variation2/.

However, there is a high probability that you won't be able to achieve this using Shopify. While Shopify is a powerful platform, it has limitations when it comes to customization. You may need custom development or the use of a third-party app to achieve the desired URL setup. Please follow my Twitter account https://twitter.com/VoxfaOfficial to stay up-to-date with my Shopify tips or visit the Shopify section of my website https://voxfa.com/category/shopify/. Thank you.

[erencicek]

Hi ! 

Thank you so much for your time and reply!

My problem is, that my SEO program tells me that only this site ranks on google: www.popandpal.dk/products/dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink , with my key word. Instead the user are redirected to this site URL:  https://www.popandpal.dk/products/dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink?variant=41498906362045 

This really hurts my SEO, they tell me and I dont know what to do about it

With kind regards

[voxfa]

Hej,

• In eye of Google www.popandpal.dk/products/dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink  &  https://www.popandpal.dk/products/dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink?variant=41498906362045  are the same. So that redirect wouldn't harm your SEO score. SEO improvement tools might suggesting removing the query string but that is unnecessary.
• Canonical tags:
  • Your website is equipped with Canonical tags. The canonical tag tells Google that www.popandpal.dk/products/dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink  is equal to https://www.popandpal.dk/products/dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink?variant=41498906362045 . As both has www.popandpal.dk/products/dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink as their canonical tag value. You can see the canonical tag for both pages by right clicking on the page and choosing "View page source" from the menu. Then search for word "canonical".
• What is happening:
  1. Your webpage loads normally on  www.popandpal.dk/products/dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink  .
  2. A JavaScript (Possibly belong to one of your app or the theme) preselect the first product variation which causes the concatenation of the variation ID to the URL (?variant=41498906362045)
• Potential fixes:
  • Figure out which app is causing this. There might be a setting for the app that preselect the first variant and you can turn it off.
  • If there is no setting and it is very important for you to change this then you might need to change the app or modify the theme/app code. Right now Størrelse dropdown has two options "A3" & "50cm x 70cm". You can introduce another option as the first option called "Select an option". So when the page load it preselect "Select an option" and customer must select a variant before finishing their order.

Tak skal du have

[SEOKart]

Hi Erencicek,

Your issue is genuine and very common. Duplication of content is often faced by Shopify store owners, and it is one of the biggest SEO nightmares, as you may lose the ranking on the search engine results page (SERP) or permanently get suspended from the search engine due to this issue.

You can use the ‘canonical tag’ for it.

This tag is added in the <head> section of the page, and the preferred version of the webpage is canonicalized. 

In your case, the canonical tag would look like this:

<link rel=“canonical” href= “https://www.popandpal.dk/products/dyreplakat-et-eventyr-pink” />

Hope it helps!

Leesha

SEOKart